IF this was a normal country many people reading this would be nursing hangovers today after over-indulging on booze while watching parades yesterday.

But this isn’t a normal country, this is England where eccentricity rules.

So the fact that yesterday was St George’s Day, the national day of this country, was met with indifference by the vast majority of the population.

There was no public holiday to allow workers to celebrate their love of England. Imagine if the French were expected to clock in on Bastille Day or the Americans had to turn up to the office on Independence Day.

This lack of a public holiday helps explain why many English people are not even aware that St George’s Day falls on April 23 – a date which also happens to be both the birthday and death day of one of the country’s greatest geniuses, William Shakespeare.

I saw no red-and-white bunting up around the Colne Valley, nor did I notice any more St George’s flags than normal along Manchester Road in the build-up to the not-so-big day.

This utter refusal to indulge in national celebrations surely sets the English apart from every other nation on Earth.

In some ways it is admirably contrarian to turn up for another day at work when you should be watching a parade with a beer in your hand.

It’s not hard to work out why most English people refuse to join the rest of the world in setting aside at least 24 hours each year for a jamboree of jingoism.

Stand and watch the thousands of people who celebrate St Patrick’s Day in Huddersfield each year and you’ll see how a burning sense of national pride is ignited by the flames of misery. The more painful a nation’s history, the stronger the urge to celebrate the national day.

In a typically understated way, an English person might observe that history’s winners do not need to take a day each year to assert their self-worth.

Perhaps alone among nations, the English have no history of being oppressed. The last foreign invaders made landfall nearly a millennium ago, meaning the country has no collective memory of occupation to inspire folk ballads of resistance to be lustily sung on national holidays.

So instead of a stirring call to the barricades like La Marseillaise or the Star-Spangled Banner, the best known song about England is named after a city which is thousands of miles away, celebrates an event which never happened and insults a key industry which made the country great in the first place.

Will this indifference to April 23 ever change? Will the English ever be persuaded to celebrate their own national holiday?

Recent attempts to generate interest in St George’s Day have met with little enthusiasm. The frequently voiced fear is that any celebration of Englishness, any innocent waving of the flag, will be “hijacked by the far right” for their own nefarious ends. While it is very healthy that people are so vigilant against extremism, I think in this case the fear is overblown.

Look at the performance of the British National Party and the English Defence League in the last five years. Do their leaders and members come across as master tacticians on the brink of seizing power? That lot couldn’t hijack a bus, let alone a national holiday.

The far right will always struggle in England because, just like the hard left, they are consumed by that most un-English of vices: earnestness.

There is no reason why English people of all creeds and colours should not feel comfortable celebrating their own country once a year.

Thinking your nation is great doesn’t mean you consider all other nations to be inferior. April 23 could be an opportunity for everyone in England to celebrate the things that make them feel proud.

It is a great shame that English people cannot be persuaded to take one day a year to remember their many extraordinary compatriots: Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Charles Darwin, Captain James Cook and Alan Turing to name just a few on a very long list.

England’s luscious landscape, its rich musical tradition, its invention of so many sports – all these things could be celebrated each year.

I can almost see the floats now, making their way towards the aptly-named St George’s Square every April 23.